Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD: lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
The LORD continues today speaking of the conditions of the church, which is spiritually dead and now (here) in hell. The title, Lamentations 2:19, is Jeremiah speaking the LORD’s words and lamenting the current state of God’s people, saying later, in Lamentations 3:17 thru 21, remembering this is what the LORD said would come: the mass misery brought on by the wormwood and the gall, our souls are humbled and we regain hope.
Until God’s people admit, confess, this is their case and state, and abandon the pride they have in the abominations they’ve put in His place, they can’t be pulled from the fires. Those that lead and teach God’s people are incapable of doing this, therefore the LORD says, come out from among them. They are those of whom the LORD says:
2 Peter 2
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily [from their own imaginations] shall bring in damnable [apoleia] heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction [apolea – perdition]. [These verses must be read in the light of 2 Peter 3, where we are first told of the end of these men’s ideas at this end time, when the word of God, reserved in heaven for this moment, is released. We are told of the fires these men’s ideas cause in the earth, in which their same foundational beliefs, elements, melt away and their works burn up. It tells of the LORD’s long-suffering these men, as He now has, but they continue on and are destroyed by their (ignorantly) wrestling with His word. We are lastly warned not to be led away with their errors and perish in the same way.]
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways [apoleia]; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation [apoliea] slumbers not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly;
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9 The LORD knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations [from questioning His presence], and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government [they love the caucuses of chaos]. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the LORD.
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceiving while they feast with you;
14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: a heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: [by] the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the [false] prophet.
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty [from just and righteous government, in church and state], they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again [the corrupt ideas spewed from their mouths]; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire [the mud they intentionally stir and agitate].
The Lamentation of Jeremiah is portraying the LORD’s awakening, the first to rise from death, the forerunner showing the way, finding himself in hell, He (Jehovah) rises and in doing raises all who humble themselves and follow Him.
Lamentations 2
1 How has the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud [where there is no understanding, clarity of sight, because elements of the waters, the word of God, are disjointed] in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The LORD has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: he has thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought them down to the ground: he has polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He has cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about.
4 He has bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The LORD was as an enemy: he has swallowed up Israel, he has swallowed up all her palaces: he has destroyed his strong holds, and has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he has destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD has caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The LORD has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he has stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for you? what thing shall I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? for your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you: and they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but have seen for you false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth [giving their own bad and misleading advice] against you: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The LORD has done that which he had devised; he has fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he has thrown down, and has not pitied: and he has caused your enemy to rejoice over you, he has set up the horn [the power and rule] of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the LORD, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give yourself no rest; let not the apple of your eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches [when darkness falls upon your people] pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD: lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street [waters to those who hunger for His word, which they have not received from the churches at the top of every street].
20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom you have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the LORD?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; you have slain them in the day of your anger; you have killed, and not pitied [the LORD has let His people, His church, the body of Christ, die by the hand of the priests and rulers, as He said would come, and be followed by this resurrection and judgment].
22 You have called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’s anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up has mine enemy consumed.
Lamentations 3
1 I Am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turns his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.
5 He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He has set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he has made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shut out my prayer.
9 He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he has made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he has made me desolate.
12 He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he has covered me with ashes.
17 And you have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD: [He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53]
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is your faithfulness.
24 The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him.
29 He puts his mouth in the dust; [Isaiah 29:3 And I will camp against you round about, and will lay siege against you with a mount, and I will raise forts against you. 4 And you shall be brought down, and shall speak out of the ground, and your speech shall be low out of the dust, and your voice {qowl – the voices opposing the LORD} shall be, as of one that has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust {these are the voices of the dead}. 5 Moreover the multitude of your strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passes away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly. 6 You shall be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise {qowl – the voice of the LORD’s archangel, His chief messenger, as the sound of a trumpet}, with storm and tempest {ca’ar – whirlwind, from where the LORD’s voice is heard}, and the flame of devouring fire.] if so be there may be hope.
30 He gives his cheek to him that smites him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the LORD will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth.
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the LORD approves not.
37 Who is he that says, and it comes to pass, when the LORD commands it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the Most High proceeds not evil and good?
39 Wherefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins [by which comes correction and righteousness]?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: you have not pardoned.
43 You have covered with anger, and persecuted us: you have slain, you have not pitied.
44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 You have made us as the off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickles down, and ceases not, without any intermission.
50 Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affects mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon your name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon [the prison of hell where there is no peace for the wicked].
56 You have heard my voice: hide not your ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 You drew near in the day that I called upon you: you said, Fear not.
58 O LORD, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.
59 O LORD, you have seen my wrong: judge you my cause.
60 You have seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 You have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their music.
64 Render unto them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, your curse unto them [Anathema Maranatha].
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.
This is a time of wormwood and gall – when the wicked feed the world with the poison of their deception.
As previously discussed, “wormwood and gall” are referring to the “root of bitterness” which is the curse that comes, by which many are destroyed (by those among them who they think are their friends). These are the secret things the LORD reveals to those who love Him and keep His word (His covenant, His promise to those who keep the promise they’ve vowed), as it is written in Deuteronomy 29.
Deuteronomy 29
9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
10 You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water:
12 That you shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God maketh with you this day:
13 That he may establish you today for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he has said unto you, and as he has sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15 But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
16 (For you know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which you passed by;
17 And you have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid upon it;
23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore has the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Hebrews 12
11 Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the LORD:
15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
17 For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
18 For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest [you are not ignorant or tossed by the whirlwind],
19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast [man refusing correction and therefore without the Spirit who gives understanding] touch this mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
22 But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
25 See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven [the place of understanding]:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 For our God is a consuming fire.
The “wormwood” is spoken of in Proverbs 5:4 as the words of the strange woman who lures God’s people away from His understanding and wisdom, into hell. Wandering away from wisdom into wormwood is the slippery place wherein those who ignorantly walk fall (perish).
Jeremiah 23
12 Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, says the LORD.
13 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.
14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none does return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
15 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.
16 Thus says the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.
17 They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD has said, You shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.
18 For who has stood in the counsel of the LORD, and has perceived and heard his word? who has marked his word, and heard it?
19 Behold, a whirlwind [ca’ar] of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind [ca’ar]: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.
20 The anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days [‘archariyhth] you shall consider it perfectly.
21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
22 But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.
23 Am I a God at hand, says the LORD, and not a God afar off?
24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? says the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the LORD.
Proverbs 5
1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow your ear to my understanding:
2 That you may regard discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
6 Lest you should ponder the path of life, her [the strange woman’s] ways are moveable [ever changing], that you can not know them.
7 Hear me now therefore, O you children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Remove your way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
9 Lest you give your honor unto others, and your years unto the cruel:
10 Lest strangers be filled with your wealth; and your labors be in the house of a stranger;
11 And you mourn at the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed,
12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Amos 6
8 The LORD God has sworn by himself, said the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.
9 And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house [among the evil congregation], that they shall die.
10 And a man’s uncle shall take him up, and he that burns him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with you? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold your tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.
11 For, behold, the LORD commands, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.
12 Shall horses run upon the rock [and not slip]? will one plow there with oxen [when the LORD has not sent them]? for you have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock [wormwood]:
13 You which rejoice in a thing of naught, which say, Have we not taken to us horns [power and rule] by our own strength?
The word in Lamentations 3:20, rendered “humbled,” telling when the soul of man is prepared to receive the LORD, is the three-times used Hebrew word shuwach. It appears in Proverbs 5:18 and Psalms 44:25, both describing when the soul of man is humbled and prepared, one to everlasting death and the other into immortality.
Proverbs 2
1 My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments with you;
2 So that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
3 Yea, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding;
4 If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures;
5 Then shall you understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom: out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
7 He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
8 He keeps the paths of judgment, and preserves the way of his saints.
9 Then shall you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10 When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto your soul;
11 Discretion shall preserve you, understanding shall keep you:
12 To deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaks froward things [twisted and perverted, falsely so-called, “truths”];
13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
16 To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words [saying you’re a good and caring person if you go along with their delusions – their twisted perversions of truth];
17 Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forget the covenant of her God.
18 For her house inclines [shuwach – humbles you to their lies] unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
19 None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
20 That you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
Psalms 44
1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work you did in their days, in the times of old.
2 How you did drive out the heathen with your hand, and planted them; how you did afflict the people, and cast them out.
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your countenance, because you had a favor unto them.
4 You are my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through you will we push down our enemies: through your name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But you have saved us from our enemies, and have put them to shame that hated us.
8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise your name forever. Selah.
9 But you have cast off, and put us to shame; and go not forth with our armies.
10 You make us to turn back from the enemy: and they which hate us spoil for themselves.
11 You have given us like sheep appointed for meat; and have scattered us among the heathen.
12 You sell your people for naught, and do not increase your wealth by their price.
13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.
14 You make us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face has covered me,
16 For the voice of him that reproaches and blasphemes; by reason of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten you, neither have we dealt falsely in your covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from your way;
19 Though you have sore broken us in the place of dragons [men in whose mouths are the fires of hell], and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
21 Shall not God search this out? for he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Yea, for your sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake, why sleep you, O LORD? arise, cast us not off forever.
24 Wherefore hide you your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down [shuwach – humbled and prepared] to the dust [from where the LORD will create the new man]: our belly cleaves unto the earth.
26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for your mercies’ sake.
